There
is a glaring omission from the issues addressed in not only the presidential
debates, but the debates and campaign literature of almost every candidate
for public office in the United States. It is also missing from media
coverage, polling, debates on the floor of Congress, and most public discussion.

That issue is constitutional
compliance.

Once in a while someone who
doesn't like some policy or official act will call it "unconstitutional",
but usually without much explanation of why it might be unconstitutional.
Too often it is just a special pleading that is dismissed as such.

Determining what is and is
not constitutional is not just a duty of lawyers and judges. It is a duty
of every citizen, in the way he or she lives and works, and in the ways
he or she votes. Corruption begins with every voter who votes his pocketbook
instead of for what's good for the country in the long term.

President Bush promised to
nominate only "strict constructionists" to the federal bench,
but do his nominees qualify? Or are they just conservatives whose copies
of the Bill of Rights are missing the First and Ninth Amendments? On the
other side, many of his nominees have been blocked by Democrats who claim
they are trying to protect Roe v. Wade, but who privately seem more concerned
that much of the legislation and spending programs favored by their constituents
might be stuck down as unconstitutional by true strict constructionists.
Their copies of the Bill of Rights seem to be missing the Second and Tenth
Amendments.

The media and pundits seem
focused on process over substance, and to try to fit every issue into
a left-right ideological spectrum, which might apply to distributionist
issues, but which ignore concerns about constitutional legitimacy, regardless
of how the burdens and benefits of governmental action might be distributed.

Too many people, perhaps
even the readers of this message, are all too willing to ignore the constitutional
restrictions on delegated powers when they want government, especially
the federal government, to solve some problem, and then complain that
government is threatening civil liberties, forgetting the warnings of
the Founders that rights could not be protected against government if
there was not strict enforcement of of the limits on powers. Perhaps it
is time to rethink our positions on what we want government to do, or
whether there may not be unacceptable risks and costs to having government
do things that we should have to do in the private sector. Perhaps it
is time to reconsider whether the corruption and abuse of power that comes
with giving more powers to government may not be too great to be offset
by the imagined benefits, which may not in fact be as great as we think.

Honest people can and do
disagree about what is and is not constitutional, but we can all agree
that the debates in every election should make constitutional compliance
a critical issue, ranked as high or higher than all the others that now
get most of the attention. Therefore, I urge all of you to privately raise
the issue in communications with candidates, the media, pollsters, and
opinion leaders generally. Forward this message, and add to or delete
from the end any specific issues involving constitutional compliance that
concern you.

And keep in mind that there
are organizations working for constitutional compliance that desperately
need your financial help. We are one of them, but you may have others
you would prefer to support. The important thing is to support some of
them. There is plenty of money available for violating the Constitution,
but precious little for enforcing it strictly.

- Regardless of whether
going to war in Iraq was a good policy decision, without a congressional
declaration of war, or letters of marque and reprisal, the actions of
the President and those under his command were criminal acts. The consent
resolution of Congress does not qualify as a declaration of war, which
must declare an enemy, the causes (casus belli or casus foederis),
and authorize action against it, and which should specify the conditions
for termination of it.

- Conscription into the
Army is not authorized by the constitutional power to "raise"
an Army, contrary to Supreme Court precedent. That, by original understanding,
is only the power to recruit volunteers for a fixed term of service
and to pay them for it. There is a power to call up the militia, but
that is only for the duration of an emergency, which the Founders expected
would be short, and there is no power to send militia beyond the borders
of the nation.